


Whispering Island

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [79]
Category: Famous Five - Enid Blyton, Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen and Ryan get away from work for a weekend, but as ever, it turns into something of a busman's holiday, with a series of unexpected encounters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have advanced the ages of the Five somewhat.

The late evening sun glinted on the surface of the water, reflecting the light of an evening sky shot through with crimson and orange. Shadows were already lengthening around them as Ryan parked the car in front of a large, semi-detached house overlooking the bay. He had hoped to arrive several hours earlier, but a long tailback on the M4 had put paid to those plans within an hour of them leaving the ARC.

The house was owned by a friend of his, invalided out of the Regiment, who now ran an outdoor pursuits centre concentrating mainly on canoeing, climbing and ‘coasteering’, which as far as Ryan could tell consisted of making near-suicidal leaps from rocks into the sea in an attempt to complete a route around otherwise inaccessible sections of the seashore. He’d tried it a couple of times and it had been fun, but he didn’t particularly like sweltering inside a wetsuit, although seeing Stephen half-naked and wet did generally make up for an excess of neoprene and cold water.

Wilf had left a set of keys under a plant pot in the front garden – not the greatest form of security, but as there were at least 30 pots of various shapes and sizes it wasn’t quite as daft as it had first sounded. However, it did bring home rather sharply to Ryan that he knew bugger all about plants.

“Hart, what’s a sodding dahlia when it’s at home?”

Stephen paused in the act of stretching like a cat and pointed into the middle of the forest of pots. “The orange things over there, I think. My gran had a garden full of them.”

Ryan picked his way through a riot of blooms to a large pot containing assorted flowers almost the same colour as the spectacular sunset. As Wilf had instructed, the key was covered by gravel under the earthenware pot. The keys to the garage would be inside the cottage, hanging from a hook in the meter cupboard. The house was large and airy, with a glazed porch around the front door and a double garage at the side. Wilfrid Layman was away for a week visiting an elderly relative and had been more than happy to lend them his house – and, more importantly, two of his kayaks – for the weekend.

As it was already approaching 7pm, Ryan was tempted to say to hell with their original plans and stay overnight in the guest bedroom, but Stephen was already looking longingly at their intended destination, the large island in the bay, and Ryan didn’t want to do anything to disappoint his lover.

Within half an hour of arriving, they’d packed two kayaks with what they needed for two nights away: a small tent, bed roll and sleeping bags (all in waterproof containers), along with food for two days and a bottle of scotch for drinking beside their campfire. Ryan had been most impressed when he’d discovered their local supermarket sold quite a decent blended whisky in plastic bottles. They also had a large ginger cake, carefully packaged in its own plastic box, courtesy of one of the women in the ARC canteen, who had developed a soft spot for both of them that generally manifested as spoiling them rotten with cake.

They were well-practised in travelling light, but even so the kayaks were fairly full by the time they had finished packing. They had been careful to distribute the weight evenly, but the twin red kayaks would still ride quite low in the water. Wilf had warned them about the currents in the bay. On a receding tide the water would exert a strong pull out to sea, and on an incoming tide would be hard to paddle against. The traffic problems had upset their timing by several hours, but as far as Ryan could tell from studying the water and consulting the tide tables through an app on his phone, the tide had not yet reached the turn. They carried the boats down one at a time to the water’s edge, crossing the road outside Wilf’s house and making their way across a mixture of sand and pebbles to the sea.

A few families were still playing on the beach, despite the fact that the sun had almost sunk beneath the horizon. A large, hairy brown mongrel came running across the sand to Ryan and Stephen, tongue lolling from the side of its mouth as the dog’s unusually long tail swung from side to side. The animal came to a halt in front of Stephen and looked up at him out of intelligent brown eyes.

Stephen reached out with one hand and let the dog sniff it. He was promptly favoured with a wet lick and more tail wagging. Ryan watched as his lover stroked the dog’s head and scratched behind its ears. They both liked animals and he knew Stephen would love to have a dog to accompany him when he went running, but with their jobs, having any animal companions was out of the question. A piercing whistle brought the dog to its feet and without a backward look, it bounded away across the beach.

Ryan took his lifejacket out of the kayak and pulled it over his head, adjusting the straps so that it was a reasonably snug fit. They had changed into shorts, teeshirts and plastic shoes in the cottage, so launching the kayaks was easy. Wilf had left a map of the island for them in the cottage, so they knew where they needed to aim for. He’d also marked the areas of the shore they had to avoid. The island was well-protected by rocks that came dangerously close to the surface of the water at low tide and even in shallow craft like theirs, they would need to exercise caution.

The island was strictly off limits to casual visitors, as various signs along the edge of the beach proclaimed, although according to Wilf, they didn’t do much to keep determined trespassers at bay. The owner, a very old and extremely rich aunt of Wilf’s, had given permission for them to spend a couple of days on the island and Ryan was keen to see it for himself after the descriptions he’d heard of Wilf playing there as a child. From what Ryan could gather, his aunt had bought it cheap many years ago after some scandal involving the former owner and an art and antiquities smuggling ring and it had effectively been left to Wilf to manage the island for her.

Ryan’s paddles dipped in and out of the water, propelling the kayak across the low waves with ease. A few metres away, Stephen was doing the same, his dark hair standing up in damp spikes, his face open and relaxed. Whispering Island was drawing closer by the minute. Ryan consulted the map he’d memorised and adjusted his course slightly, calling to Stephen to do the same. He didn’t want to risk tangling with the rocks. The island seemed to be mostly covered with trees from what he’d seen through binoculars on the shore. It played host to an old, ruined castle, testament to a Victorian gentleman who’d clearly had more money than sense. Since he’d died, the castle had gone to rack and ruin and according to Wilf, little more than the stonework was now left standing.

“Looks like we’re heading in the right direction.” Stephen gestured to what appeared to be a sandy beach overhung by a low, rocky cliff and tall, dark trees. “That’s exactly as Wilf described it.”

“Then that means we’re coming up to the rocks now.” Ryan scanned the water carefully for any sign of waves cresting on rock. He thought he could pick out some disturbance in the water about ten metres to their left, so he set a course to avoid them, with Stephen dropping back behind him so they could proceed in single file.

“If you took your teeshirt off I’d have a better view,” Stephen called.

Ryan flipped him the finger without bothering to turn around. The water was starting to churn slightly and he needed to concentrate. He was no stranger to water after a brief secondment to the SBS some years ago. In addition, he still canoed as often as time allowed as it was a sport they both enjoyed, but it was a couple of years since he had taken a kayak out to sea. The huge bay was deceptive, very much a trap for the unwary. The water might look calm, but the currents were fierce and it would be all too easy to come to grief on the rocks or be swept out to sea. Fortunately, the intelligence he’d received from Wilf had been good and in the space of a few minutes they were past the rocks and running with the tide towards the small cove.

They hauled the kayaks out of the water and made sure to take them well up beyond the line of driftwood and flotsam that formed the high tide mark. According to Wilf, friends of his had once forgotten to do exactly that and had ended up stranded on the island. It was an easy enough mistake, but was one that Ryan had absolutely no intention of making.

It was dark under the shadow of the trees. They both fished out LED head-torches from their packs rather than blunder blindly around the slippery rocks. With a waterproof pack slung over each shoulder, Ryan made his away through the trees with Stephen at his side. They’d both memorised Wilf’s map and had decided to head for a clearing not far from the cove, where they intended to set up camp. They had enough water with them for the night and Wilf had assured them that they could draw as much water as they needed from the well at the castle, so they could replenish their bottles the following day.

They’d only taken a few paces into the trees when Stephen stopped and tilted his head to one side, listening. Ryan immediately followed suit. The light breeze that had been at their backs as they’d paddled away from the shore was rustling the branches of the trees, making an almost eerie whispering.

_‘Shooey, shooey, shooey…’_

“Not hard to see where this place gets its name from,” Stephen said. “It sounds like a bunch of kids whispering behind someone’s back.”

 _‘Shooey, shooey, shooey…’_ The leaves rustled in the breeze and their unearthly chorus continued unabated.

“Or the lads in the rec room after a night on the piss.”

Stephen grinned and together they made their way along a rough track that had been marked on Wilf’s map. The clearing they were heading for was close to the ruined castle, but all they intended to do for the moment was pitch their tent and have something to eat. They’d have plenty of time over the weekend for exploring.

The trees had obviously been growing for some considerable time. They looked to Ryan to be a mix of oak and beech, and in places, dark tangles of rhododendron bushes clustered thickly around their boles. He could see the trees thinning slightly ahead and guessed they were about to reach the clearing. As they walked, Ryan cast his eyes from side to side, scanning for threats as he always did when exploring somewhere new, in a habit engrained in him both by his military training and his current secondment.

The rapidly fading light cast shadows everywhere, but Ryan certainly wasn’t expecting to encounter a grotesquely elongated human-like shadow across his path as he emerged from the trees. He stiffened, throwing an arm to one side to alert Stephen to possible danger. For an instant, instinct took over and Ryan reached for a non-existent weapon before reminding himself forcibly that he was on a deserted island off the south coast of England, not somewhere in Helmand Province or Somalia or any other hot-spot of his acquaintance.

He turned to face the figure and stared into a pair of disconcertingly sharp eyes, set in an unnaturally pale face. The sharp glint of blood-red in the gaze forced him backwards a pace and he heard Stephen’s sharp intake of breath.

A prickle of fear danced lightly down Ryan’s spine and he tensed, ready for action.

The figure stared back at him, a faint smile on its unearthly face.


	2. Chapter 2

“Shit!” Ryan could feel his pulse racing and his heart hammering in his chest.

Stephen’s quiet chuckle and the hand on his shoulder helped to ground him. “Relax. You won’t win a staring match with a statue.”

“I’ll fucking kill Wilf Layman next time I see him,” Ryan vowed. “He could have bloody warned us.”

He stared around the clearing, the light from his head-torch picking out numerous other figures amongst the undergrowth. Statues of men and women, all with eerily serene expressions on their alabaster faces. Ryan counted at least twelve, and no doubt there were more. Wilf had a wicked sense of humour, and was no doubt smiling at the thought of the fright they would have got at their first sight of the figures, although to be fair to his friend, Wilf probably hadn’t expected them to reach the island after nightfall.

“There’s going to be a whole lot of people watching you when you go out for a piss in the middle of the night, Hart,” he commented.

“You know bloody well I’ve got a cast-iron bladder.”

“Doesn’t stop you whining for pee stops when we’re travelling.”

“I whine for ice cream as well, but I don’t get that, either. And I’ll have you know that when we went to that bloody shout in Penrith, I managed the whole trip without a pee break.”

Ryan grinned at the memory. Lyle had been driving and he’d steadfastly refused to stop en route. Connor had damn nearly resorted to peeing in his water bottle and there had been a lot of people dashing into the bushes when they’d finally reached the anomaly site.

He stared around at the watching statues. Stephen always had had something of an exhibitionist streak, so no doubt he’d be more than happy with the company they’d gained. He chucked the bags on the ground. “I don’t know about you, but I’m knackered after that drive. I’d deal with dinosaurs any day than the bloody Friday night traffic on the M4. Come on, let’s get that tent up and have something to eat.”

The tent was erected in a matter of minutes. The weather was still warm, so the light sleeping bags they had zipped together would be perfectly adequate. While Ryan was sorting out their kit, Stephen produced a rapid meal of chilli and rice from packets, followed by a couple of slices of ginger cake, washed down with a can of beer. They’d travelled light, but not so light that they’d left out the alcohol.

Ryan stripped off his clothes outside the tent, feeling the cool air slide over his skin like silk. Stephen had stowed his clothes in the bottom corner of his side of the bed and had already burrowed into the cocoon of the sleeping backs. Ryan managed to slip in alongside him and pull the zip up. They spooned together with the comfortable familiarity of long-term lovers as Ryan nuzzled at the back of Stephen’s neck and ran a hand down Stephen’s chest, following the trail of soft hair that led to his groin.

Stephen’s cock was warm in his hand, already hard. Ryan ran his fingers lightly down his shaft and cupped his balls, giving them a light squeeze. Stephen pushed back against him, wriggling so Ryan’s cock pressed up against his arse. He’d taken the precaution of stowing both a tube of lubricant and a packet of tissues within reach and in a matter of minutes his cock was pushing against Stephen’s tight hole while his fingers continued their work on his lover’s cock. Patience was certainly not one of Stephen’s virtues and he shoved back with his hips. Ryan gasped at the sensation as his cock was sheathed in the tight heat of Stephen’s arse.

“What happened to foreplay?” Ryan muttered, nipping lightly at the back of Stephen’s neck.

“You stroked my cock,” Stephen pointed out as Ryan started to thrust lazily into his lover’s body.

“Ah yes, silly me, so I did.”

They moved together in the cocoon of the sleeping bag, making love unhurriedly, revelling in the feel of each other’s bodies. It had been a long week, during which all they’d done at night was fall into bed for little more than a kiss and a cuddle so it was nice to be able to take their time without being in danger of the phone ringing in their off duty hours to signal yet another call needing maximum numbers of personnel.

He could tell from the small noises Stephen was making that his lover was slowly approaching his climax. Ryan teased at the sensitive head of Stephen’s cock, fingering the slit and then lifting his hand to Stephen’s mouth to allow him to lick at the salty pre-come. They continued to rock together, Ryan pulling back and then Stephen pushing back, impaling himself time and time again, gasping whenever he managed to get the angle right so Ryan’s cock nudged against his prostate.

Ryan could feel heat building up in his own crotch and so speeded up the movement of his hand, each time catching the fluid leaking from Stephen’s slit and using it to lubricate his palm. He knew from long practise exactly how Stephen liked this and moments later, Stephen’s hips bucked, this time thrusting up into Ryan’s palm, gasping as he climaxed. Stephen’s arse tightened around Ryan’s cock and that was enough to tip him over the edge as he held Stephen close and thrust through the tremors of his own orgasm.

Ryan held his lover close, dimly aware of Stephen licking his own come off Ryan’s hand and pressing a kiss into his palm, and as Ryan drifted slowly into a contented sleep, he could still hear the trees whispering around them.

‘Shooey, shooey, shooey…’

* * * * *

A tall, grey stone wall loomed above them, complete with crenellations. It looked like a child’s drawing of a castle, built to almost Brobdinagian proportions. The undergrowth pressed up against the stonework and ivy had long since climbed the walls, sending strong fingers into the mortar and loosening the joints. A pair of jackdaws flitted around a nest high on one wall where a stone had fallen, leaving a convenient hole for a bird’s nest. Wilf had been right when he’d said the castle had been allowed to go to rack and ruin. Even before his grandmother had purchased the island it must have been derelict.

“This would be great on Grand Designs,” Stephen said with obvious enthusiasm.

Ryan rolled his eyes. On the rare occasions they watched television, Stephen seemed to thrive on a staple diet of Grand Designs, Top Gear and football, none of which held much interest for Ryan, but he had to admit that crappy TV was greatly improved by having his lover sprawled out next to him on the sofa and a can of beer on hand.

“You have the worst taste in TV, sweetie.”

Stephen looked indignant. “I don’t watch Cash in the Attic.”

“And I remain thankful for small mercies.”

“You’re starting to sound like Lester!”

“No I’m not. He would have said that you have the most deplorable taste. I don’t use big words like that.”

Stephen muttered something Ryan didn’t quite catch and then dived off into the undergrowth in search of the entrance to the castle. As Ryan followed him, he half-wondered whether they would come across a moat and a rotten drawbridge just to complete the Gothic imagery. They finally worked their way around to a majestic archway flanked by two enormous stone lions. The great beasts were almost on eye level with Ryan as they sat on their haunches and stared out into the ever-encroaching trees. They were streaked with white, courtesy of the numerous nesting birds, but that failed to detract from their gravity and Ryan was reminded of the lion in the Narnia books that he’d loved as a kid, while imagining himself running around dressed in chainmail and carrying a broadsword.

The gateway led into an overgrown courtyard open to the sky. As far as he could see, the woodwork had rotted everywhere and the roof had fallen in, making it hard to imagine how the building would have looked when it was first built. According to Wilf’s map, the low circular stone wall on one side was the well. The only new wood that Ryan had seen anywhere formed a small pitched roof over the well to prevent debris falling down and choking the water. A shiny new winding handle, a large black, plastic bucket with a weighted bottom, attached to a thick, strong rope were all testament to Wilf’s trips over to the island to make sure that some things remained in good order.

Ryan peered down into the depths of the stone-lined well. He couldn’t be sure how deep it was, but he guessed it was somewhere in the region of 15 metres down to the surface of the water. Ryan checked that the bucket was securely tied onto the rope and then dropped it, watching the rope spin off the winding spit until the black bucket finally hit the water, bobbed for a few moments and then started to sink. Once it was full of water, Ryan turned the handle and brought the bucket back up. The water was crystal clear, chemical-free and tasted wonderful.

He stripped off quickly, ignoring Stephen’s amused look, and washed off the sweat and other remnants of their activities the previous night. The sun was already warm and in a matter of minutes, Ryan was dressed again. Stephen didn’t quite share his habit of taking cold showers in the morning, but even he took advantage of the next bucket Ryan dragged out of the well.

Once they’d cleaned up and got dressed again, they spent an hour or so poking around the ruins, before a loud rumble from Stephen’s stomach reminded them that they’d gone off to explore without having had breakfast, something they would need to remedy as quickly as possible.

On their way back to the clearing where they’d pitched the tent, Stephen tilted his head to one side and remarked, “The trees have stopped whispering.”

His lover was right. The light breeze that had been with them since they left the mainland had vanished at last, taking with it the murmuring of the trees. As they listened for a non-existent sound of the leaves, Ryan felt an indefinable prickle at the edge of his senses. Something else had changed…

“There’s no birdsong,” Stephen said, picking up on Ryan’s train of thought without the need for any explanation.

Instinctively, Ryan looked up. The last time something like that had happened had signalled the presence of an aerial predator. All he saw was half a dozen rooks, flapping up into the cornflower blue of a cloudless sky. “Something’s just disturbed them,” he said quietly.

“Congratulations, sweetie, we’ll make a boy scout of you yet. A fiver says we’re not on our own any more. Did Wilf mention anyone else might be here?”

Ryan shook his head. The island was a big place, so there was no reason to suppose that the presence of anyone else would spoil their weekend, but he was curious to know who had come over, as his presumption was that they were trespassers. He also wanted to make sure that their kayaks were still where they’d been left. By unspoken assent, they veered away from the clearing and took an overgrown track that would lead them back to the cove where they’d left the kayaks tethered to a tree, well above the high water mark.

The two red kayaks were exactly where they’d been left, but they were now in the company of a large, bright blue rowing boat with the name Saucy Jane painted on the prow. Stephen stared around at a seemingly jumbled mass of prints on the sandy shore for a couple of minutes before delivering his verdict. “Four adults and a dog. If I had to put money on it I’d say one’s a woman. Those prints are several sizes smaller than the others.”

“What type of dog?” Ryan asked, only half-joking.

“A bloody great big one.”

“Then it’s a good job we like dogs, isn’t it? It would be rude not to introduce ourselves,” Ryan said, pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket and checking for a signal.

As Wilf had warned, the island was in an almost total mobile phone black spot. One bar appeared briefly on his screen and then flickered and disappeared. That put paid to his idea of seeing if he could contact Wilf. There was no reason to believe that the other visitors would be out for trouble, but in Ryan’s line of work, it was better to assume hostile intent than be surprised by it – that way, you weren’t likely to be disappointed.

And trouble did have rather a nasty habit of following them around.


	3. Chapter 3

A check on their belongings left at the campsite demonstrated that nothing had been disturbed, although it was clear from the prints on the ground that at least two people and the dog had passed that way recently. It wasn’t difficult for Stephen to follow the trail they’d left behind.

It soon became obvious that the visitors were making their way across the island to the castle. The trail passed to the east of their clearing, winding its way up the steep slope to the main entrance to the castle. Ryan heard the sound of voices in the courtyard: a woman and a man. He looked at Stephen and raised his eyebrows questioningly. Stephen shrugged and took a step towards the stone lions flanking the gateway.

A sudden volley of barks made both men take a step backwards and for the second time since they arrived on the island, Ryan felt naked without a weapon, even though he wasn’t normally nervous around dogs, but this one sounded large and determined.

“It’s the dog from the beach,” Stephen said, standing stock still. “Easy, boy, we’re no threat.”

“Timmy!”

At the sound of his name, the dog stopped barking and stared at them, his previously friendly, brown eyes now wary.

A man about ten years older than Ryan, good-looking, with a shock of curly dark hair, stepped up behind the dog and stared at them appraisingly out of eyes as sharp and brown as the dog’s. He was dressed in a pair of scruffy jeans with a rip in one knee, a baggy teeshirt that even Ryan would have consigned to the dustbin a long time ago, and a pair of walking boots. At a click of his fingers, the dog went to his side and sat down.

“We met your dog on the beach,” Stephen remarked. “Do you come here often?”

“It’s none of your business,” the man said, his voice as much a growl as the one the dog was quietly emitting.

“Don’t be so tetchy, George,” an amused voice admonished.

A woman stepped out from the shadow of the gateway. Short blonde hair cut in a page-boy bob framed a pretty, heart-shaped face. Her skin was smooth and pale, unlike her companion’s deep tan, and she was neatly dressed in a pair of grey trousers and a pale pink shirt.

“You must be Wilfrid’s friends, Ryan and Stephen,” she said, stepping up to them and holding out one slim, well-manicured hand. “I’m Anne, this is my cousin, George. I’m sorry that we’ve burst in on your weekend away like this. Coming over here was rather a spur of the moment decision and you’d already left the harbour before Wilf could get through to you on the phone. We were meant to have been going to a friend’s birthday party in Bournemouth, but her and her husband have both gone down with flu, so we had to have a last minute change of plan.” She smiled and took the hand Ryan held out to her in a firm grip. “The island’s big enough for all of us. I promise we won’t get in your way.”

Her easy, confident greeting and use of their names allayed Ryan’s concerns. He was naturally suspicious by nature, but the woman didn’t look like the sort of person who spent time trespassing, even though Ryan knew looks could be deceiving.

“I’m just boiling a kettle. Would you like to join us for some coffee? Then we’ll leave you in peace for the rest of the weekend.”

“That would be nice,” Stephen said, proffering his hand to Anne. “The coffee, I mean. I’m Stephen, this is Ryan. We’ve pitched our tent in the clearing near the statues. I hope we haven’t stolen your favourite spot.”

“We normally stay up here, near the well,” Anne said. “It makes it easier to keep Timmy supplied with water.” She turned and made her way back into the courtyard.

The taciturn George gave a click of his tongue and the dog’s manner instantly changed. His tail started wagging and he bounded up to Stephen, as friendly and exuberant as he’d been on the beach.

As Anne busied herself with the small fire that was already starting to crackle underneath a battered old kettle, two other men came into the courtyard, looking as unsurprised to see them as Anne had been.

“My brothers, Julian and Dick,” Anne said.

The elder of the two was tall, his blond hair greying slightly at the temples. He was a seemed few years older than his sister, but the resemblance between the two was unmistakeable. The other brother, perhaps the same age as his surly cousin, was darker and stocky, with a close-cropped beard, also starting to turn grey. His face was tanned, with pale laughter lines at the corners of his eyes and his grip was firm and confident. Both his bearing and the deceptively casual gaze that had given them both a very professional once-over screamed ex-military at Ryan.

“If there’s going to be a pissing contest, I’d appreciate it if you’d all use the outer wall,” Anne said as she took some mugs out of a large rucksack.

Dick’s bark of laughter pricked the slight tension in the air. Handshakes were exchanged and afterwards Ryan, Stephen and Julian perched on a few fallen blocks of masonry and watched while George and Dick erected two tents in the shadow of one of the walls.

“Is this your first time on the island?” Julian asked.

“Yes,” Ryan said. “Wilf’s been saying for ages that we should come down here but things have never quite worked out until now.”

Dick trod a tent peg into the ground and remarked, “You served with him.” It was a statement not a question.

Ryan nodded. He’d served with Wilf for two years before a roadside bomb in Helmand Province had cost his friend a large chunk of his right thigh, and from the look in the other man’s steel grey eyes, Dick already knew that. It had taken Wilf Layman two years to regain his fitness for a range of outdoor activities, and whilst the ex-sergeant might be able to run rings around most of his clients, he’d lost the endurance that the Regiment demanded of its men.

They made small talk as Anne passed around the coffee and a packet of chocolate biscuits. By the time they’d finished their drinks, they’d learnt that Anne was a tax lawyer in London, Julian did ‘something boring in the City’, Dick ran a security consultancy and George – like Wilf – ran an outdoor pursuits centre. Apparently they’d known Wilf since childhood and had often visited the island together.

Dick told an amusing tale of one of their adventures as kids, expanding on the story that Ryan had heard from his friend of their run in with art smugglers using the island to store stolen goods. Ryan politely declined Dick’s offer to show them the secret tunnel that ran from the well to the aptly-named Wailing Cliffs, as little way further around the shoreline from where they’d left their boat. Exploring old tunnels wasn’t his idea of fun, although Stephen looked interested.

“Thanks for the coffee,” Ryan said, standing up.

“Would you like to pool resources for an evening meal?” Anne asked. “I think we’ve brought enough food to feed a small army, but then I always think that…”

“…food tastes nicer when it’s eaten outdoors!” chorused the other three, in what was obviously a well-worn refrain.

“We don’t want to impose,” Stephen said.

Anne smiled. “You wouldn’t be. We have all day to do our own thing and you really would be welcome to join us later.”

Ryan’s curiosity had been thoroughly aroused by the group and he knew Stephen felt the same. “We have a very large ginger cake, if that helps.”

Even the truculent George brightened up at the mention of ginger cake, so, with that settled, Ryan and Stephen took their leave of the group, patted Timmy on the head and continued their exploration of the island.

“Do you believe for a second that Julian just does something ‘boring in the city’?” Stephen asked, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers.

“No. He reminded me far too much of Lester for that to be likely. What do you think of Dick?”

Stephen shot him a mischievous grin. “I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating toast.”

Ryan slapped his lover lightly on the arse. “Neither would I, but that’s not what I meant. There’s something about him that’s familiar, but I can’t pin down where I know him from. His voice seems familiar, but I can’t place his face.”

They strolled back to their camp, deposited the water container that they’d filled from the well and then set about exploring the rest of the island. The Wailing Cliffs and their strange siren call were easily identified. Ryan couldn’t tell what was making the noise, although airflow through the various blowholes that connected the cliff tops with the sea below seemed a likely candidate. They worked their way around the shoreline, clambering up and down rocks, until they finally made their way to a secluded beach on the seaward side of the island. Gulls wheeled above them, their harsh cries filling the air. With only sea birds for company, a swim seemed in order, as the chances of them being overlooked from the cliffs above seemed unlikely.

Ryan stripped off quickly, leaving his clothes on a rock out of reach of the incoming tide. The water in the cove was calm, cradled between two protruding arms of the cliffs, but beyond the encircling rocks, Ryan could see white tops to the waves where they crested a submerged reef Wilf had warned them about, They would be safe within the small bay, but venturing out any further would be dangerous.

The water was cold, but not unpleasantly so. Ryan launched himself into an over-arm crawl, with Stephen close behind him. Gulls bobbing on the water in front of them took off, squawking in irritation.

They swam for a while and then lazed on the edge of the beach skimming stones for a while, before moving over to sunbathe on a large, flat rock. Eventually, Stephen got up and wandered off naked across the sand. Ryan rolled over onto his stomach and watched as his lover made his way across the beach towards the point where a small stream tumbled over the cliffs above and snaked down to the sea amidst jumbled piles of boulders. Stephen clambered up on the dark rocks and let the water splash over his body, washing off the salt from the sea and rinsing his hair. Ryan followed him and did the same, enjoying the feel of the cool sparkling water on skin warmed by the sun.

Stephen jumped down off the rocks onto the sand. He went down on one knee and started examining something, an intent look on his face.

Ryan knew that look all too well. He started to pick his way carefully over the wet rocks.

He wanted to know why his lover was now wearing his professional face.


	4. Chapter 4

Stephen automatically stretched out an arm to keep Ryan away from whatever he was looking it, but he needn’t have bothered. Ryan had worked with the tracker long enough to know that you didn’t press too closely when he was working, not unless you wanted to be on the receiving end of a very hard stare.

So he hung back and waited for Stephen’s signal that it was in order for him to approach. He looked down at the wet ground, for once not distracted by the sight of his lover’s long, lean body. He could see what looked like paw prints in the damp sand.

Stephen looked up at him and Ryan raised his eyebrows.

“Timmy isn’t the only dog on the island,” Stephen said in reply to Ryan’s unanswered question. “These prints would have been washed out by the last high tide.”

“So someone else is here.”

“According to Wilf’s map, the cove where we landed is the only safe place, and there was no boat there other than the one George and co. came over in when we went to look.”

“Someone arrived after we were there and came down here with their dog.”

“Dogs,” Stephen corrected. “There are three different sets of prints.” He stood up and gestured to a steep gully cutting down from the cliff above them. “They came from that way and I haven’t seen any human footprints.” He stared up at the cliff then looked around again at the prints.

Ryan didn’t need to possess Stephen’s skill in such matters to make a reasonable guess at what was going through Stephen’s mind.

“Do you really think someone has either abandoned their dogs here or thrown them off the cliff?”

Stephen shrugged. “People do go to quite some length to get rid of unwanted animals.”

Ryan didn’t disagree with him. It reminded him of people who would drive out into the countryside and throw out a ton of junk into a lay-by even though they’d probably had to drive past the municipal tip to get there. Likewise they’d abandon puppies by the side of a road rather than just take them to the nearest dog’s home. He supposed that rowing out to a deserted island was similar enough to be believable and probably slightly more humane than simply dumping them over the side of a boat in a weighted sack.

The thought of dogs being abandoned like that by their owners had put something of a damper on the morning’s activities. They dressed and decided to see if they could follow them to the animals that had made them. The trail was relatively easy to pick up at first, but once the animals had scrabbled out of the steep gully onto the cliff top the prints became a good deal harder to follow. But in their favour was the fact that they were tracking three animals, and therefore had a far greater number of potential prints to find.

Ryan left the tracking to Stephen and simply followed behind, admiring the sight of his lover’s arse in scruffy black cargo pants as he bent over to examine the ground.

“They’re staying together,” Stephen commented.

“What would they find to live on here?” Ryan asked.

“Plenty of small mammals around on an island the size of this one. If the choice is hunt or die, most dogs would learn to hunt. There’s fresh water from the stream we saw going over the cliff and they might even be able to find birds’ eggs.”

The trail led through dense undergrowth, overgrown with some thick brambles. Ryan wasn’t surprised when he saw Stephen pluck a tuft of reddish-brown fur off one thorny strand. He rubbed the fur between his fingers, staring down at the thick hairs.

“Whatever it is has got a thick coat,” Stephen remarked. “The under-fur is grey, but mainly the animal is that colour.” He indicated the russet-coloured outer coat. “Shouldn’t be too difficult to spot if they’re all the same.” He stared down at the ground for a moment and then added, “One of them has got a problem with its hind leg. The paw is dragging on the ground. It’s injured in some way.”

“Then let’s hope we can find them,” Ryan said.

As they made their way across the island, Ryan heard an excited bark and glanced at Stephen, wondering if they were about to find their quarry.

Stephen shook his head. “That was Timmy.”

As Stephen had predicted, a few minutes later they came into a small clearing where an outcrop of grey rock towered above the thick, springy earth. At its base was what looked like a small mound of dug-out soil. Timmy was standing with his nose to the ground, emitting a low whine. The large, usually confident dog seemed uncertain. Timmy pawed at the ground and whined again, then his nose twitched as he caught another scent. The dog turned around and wagged his tail in greeting.

George turned as well and saw them approaching. He nodded in greeting. “Have you been following their trail as well? Timmy picked up a scent and I found some old prints.”

“Yes. They’d been down to one of the coves and had been drinking from a pool at the base of a waterfall,” Stephen said, going down on one knee and examining the mound of earth at the entrance to the den the dogs had dug for themselves at the base of the outcrop of rock. “That’s odd. Dogs don’t normally burrow. Are there any badgers on the island?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” George said. “There aren’t any foxes, either.”

“Well, they aren’t going to come out with three of us and Timmy breathing down their necks,” Stephen said. “I presume we’re going to see if we can get them off the island?”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving them here.” George’s dark eyes flashed with anger. “What sort of nasty sod would decide to abandon their dogs here? Rotten bastards.”

Ryan certainly didn’t disagree with that sentiment. He loathed cruelty to animals.

“And one of them is injured,” Stephen commented.

George looked at him with grudging admiration. “You noticed that as well.”

“I spent a while working on a conservation project in the Brazilian rainforest,” Stephen said. “I learned to track there.”

Ryan kept his surprise to himself. It wasn’t like Stephen to volunteer personal information but he strongly suspected his lover knew a kindred spirit when he met one. It was obvious from the look on George’s face that the man had a passionate love of animals.

“If we go up on the rocks, they might come back out,” Ryan suggested. He knew perfectly well that the afternoon was very likely to be taken up with waiting for the dogs to appear. “The wind is blowing towards us, so if we’re up above, it’ll carry our scent away.”

“There’s a way up over there,” George said, gesturing with his hand. “Come on, Tim.”

Without waiting to see if he was being followed, George made his way to the edge of the ragged outcrop and started to work his way upwards. Timmy seemed to have had prior experience of scrambling up rocks and the big dog was clearly determined to follow where his master led. The climb was easier than it looked and in a matter of minutes, they had an excellent view both down into the clearing below and also over the remainder of the island. They could see the grey crenellated towers of the ruined castle in the distance and the dark sea of trees that covered the undulating landscape.

They settled down to wait.

* * * * *

An almost inaudible growl from Timmy alerted them to the fact that one of the dogs had decided to put in an appearance.

From the size and depths of the prints, Ryan had been expecting something about the size of an Alsatian but he was wrong. The first dog emerged from the burrow, and was smaller and longer bodied. Ryan realised that he had no idea what breed of dog they’d been following. The animal had a heavy, unusually elongated head with powerful jaws, small ears flattened to its cranium and a sinuous body that reminded him more of a large cat than a dog. Its tail was short and heavy, unlike that of any dog Ryan had ever seen. In fact, the whole animal was unlike any dog he’d ever seen before.

He glanced at Stephen and saw that his lover’s eyes had widened with surprise.

“What the hell is it?” George said under his breath.

“I don’t know,” Stephen muttered, but the look he shot at Ryan out of startled blue eyes gave the lie to his words.

Ryan spent a long moment mentally cursing whatever gods had doomed them never to have a quiet weekend away from their day job and then said, “Maybe someone’s disposed of something from a private zoo.” It was the best he could come up with on the spur of the moment and he knew the moment the words left his lips that George was unconvinced.

“It looks like some sort of cross-breed,” the other man said. “Look at that muzzle, it’s like a cross between a bear and a dog…”

George was staring down into the clearing as the creature turned and gave a sharp yip, so fortunately he missed Stephen’s wince. Bear-dogs. Ryan’s memory flashed back to a desperate hunt through thick woodland, running alongside Blade, the hunter turned the hunted. They’d gone to ground in a ruined cottage and had barely escaped with their lives. The animal he was looking at now was only young, far younger than its size suggested. Ryan had seen the fully grown animals and knew all too well the size they were capable of attaining.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked to see whether he had a signal. No such luck. But at least the creatures were on an island and they only had three civilians to contend with. Things could have been a lot worse.

Below them, a second animal came out of the burrow, blunt nose twitching as it scented the air. Luckily the wind was still blowing towards them, carrying their scent away from the animals. They all stayed silent and George had his hand on Timmy’s collar, obviously a signal to the dog to remain quiet.

A few moments later, a third creature emerged. As Stephen had predicted, one hind leg dragged awkwardly on the ground. The leg looked to have been broken, possibly twisted and snapped in a fall. Ryan wondered whether there was still an open anomaly and if so, where. The other two creatures were uninjured, but if an anomaly had opened somewhere up the outcrop or at the cliff edge, one animal could easily have been unlucky enough to hurt itself on the descent.

He heard George’s sharp intake of breath. The sight of an animal suffering obviously affected him the same way it affected Abby or Stephen. His immediate instinct was clearly to want to help, whereas Ryan’s first priority was to get an unsuspecting civilian as far away from the source of potential danger as possible. The fact that they had only been following the trail of three juveniles didn’t mean that there weren’t other, larger animals to contend with. He had no idea how long the young of this species remained with the adults. That was more Stephen’s area of expertise than his, but Ryan wasn’t in a position where he could ask that sort of question.

“We need to get back to the others and see what we’ve got that we could trap them with,” George said quietly, but not quietly enough to avoid his words carrying down to the three animals.

As one, the young bear-dogs looked up, ears pricked. They closed up together in a defensive group, heavy snouts lifted and jaws slightly open. At Ryan’s side, Timmy let out a full-throated growl.

The three creatures turned and disappeared back down their burrow.

Ryan let out a long, slow breath. His mind was already turning over the possibilities, coming up with strategies to try to contain the problem. They could make their way off the rocky outcrop down an easier route to the rear. He didn’t think the animals would be likely to follow them, but he couldn’t rule that out. He’d noticed how thin they looked, their ribs visible even through their thick coats. They’d obviously found enough food to keep them alive, but certainly not as much as they needed.

“We don’t know what we’re dealing with or how they got here,” he said. “And we can’t risk being on the receiving end of those jaws.” He gestured down the jagged slope. “Come on, we need to get back to the others.”

What he really needed was to get all four civilians safely off the island and then find a mobile phone signal so he could call this one in.

But Ryan had a nasty feeling that his life wasn’t going to be that simple.


	5. Chapter 5

“We are not leaving.” George had his hands on his hips and his feet planted firmly apart. His whole body was bristling with barely-suppressed anger.

“We need to return to the mainland and let the appropriate authorities deal with this,” said Ryan, doing his best to keep his tone neutral and not betray the irritation he was feeling at George’s stubborn resistance to taking the sensible course of action.

George’s hands balled into fists and he took a step forward.

“Stop it, all of you!” Anne stepped between them, a determined expression on her face. “This is getting silly; you’re acting like squabbling children.” At her side, Timmy gave a low whine. “And you’re upsetting Timmy!”

From where Ryan was standing, the dog looked more defensive than angry.

“You’re also all forgetting something,” Dick drawled, from his position leaning against one of the stone lions in the entrance to the courtyard. “None of us are going anywhere for several hours, much as anyone might want to.”

Ryan turned to look at him, the same feeling scratching at the edge of his mind that he had come across Dick somewhere else, somewhere connected to his job…

“Why not?” Stephen demanded.

“Didn’t Wilf warn you? You can’t row back to the mainland on an ebb tide. The current past the island is too strong and it’ll sweep you out onto the rocks.”

Ryan cursed mentally. Wilf Layman had warned him about that, which is why they had been intending to leave very early on Monday morning, to catch the tide on the turn, but he’d managed to forget that inconvenient fact. For a moment he thought about disobeying Wilf’s advice, but the whispering of the trees around the castle changed his mind before the thought was even fully-formed.

‘Shooey, shooey, shooey…’

The wind was blowing briskly from the direction of the mainland and would hamper any attempt to row against the tide. The sing-song voices of the trees seemed to mock his frustration. Whether Ryan liked it or not, they were all stuck on Whispering Island at least until early the following morning and, with a non-existent mobile phone signal, he had no means of calling this one in.

“Where on earth have the animals come from?” Anne asked.

“They’ve been dumped from a private zoo,” Stephen replied, repeating Ryan’s earlier attempt at an explanation for the benefit of the others.

As barefaced lies went it was probably better than nothing, and it was all Ryan had been able to think up on the spur of the moment, but it wasn’t up to Claudia’s standards. No doubt by now she would have laid the blame somewhere and made the story stick, rather than being on the receiving end of disbelieving looks from the others.

A slow hand-clap from Julian silenced any response that George had been about to make.

“Nice try and I must admit I’ve heard worse cover stories. I’d award that one seven out of ten.” Julian’s amused words could have come straight out of Lester’s mouth. “Does James Lester have a stock of ready-made ones, or do you just make them up as you go along?”

At the use of Lester’s name, Ryan’s eyes narrowed. Their mutual friend, Wilf Layman, was a mate from way back, but Ryan had never discussed his current assignment with his old friend, so Julian couldn’t have made the connection via any indiscreet comments from that direction. That left the possibility of inside knowledge from a different direct, maybe in the city or…

“Who do you really work for?” Ryan demanded.

“The same government that pays your wages,” Julian said with a slight smile on his face. “Shall we just leave it at that?”

“No.” Ryan wanted to know who he was dealing with. He also wanted to know where the hell he knew Dick from. His memory for faces was normally more reliable than this. “I don’t think we can leave it at that. In what context do you know Lester?”

Julian sighed. “Don’t make me break any confidences, Captain Ryan. Let’s just say that if James Lester hadn’t pulled quite so many strings to get your current building assigned to his pet project, I might just have been sitting in the office James is now occupying. Plus, you are all rather notorious now in the higher echelons of the so-called corridors of power. Your Professor Cutter is something of a bull in a china shop, isn’t he?”

Julian’s blue eyes met Ryan’s gaze and didn’t back down. From what Ryan knew of the politics surrounding their acquisition of their headquarters, Lester had had to engage in a major pissing contest with both security services to secure the premises, so that at least narrowed it down slightly. Looking at the man now, Ryan didn’t find it hard to believe that he was a spook of some sort. He had the quiet, watchful air that Ryan had learned to associate with those who had spent their working lives inhabiting some of the murkier waters both at home and abroad.

“In which case, you’ll understand me when I say that this isn’t a circumstance in which I want to be concerned with the safety of civilians,” Ryan said. “I suggest that everyone remains within this courtyard or even one of the towers if they’re safe for occupation, then when the tide turns, we can all return to the mainland and I’ll arrange for the creatures to be dealt with.”

“No bloody way!” George interrupted. “I’m not letting you just kill them.”

Oh yes, the resemblance to Abby was very pronounced. Ryan shook his head but he knew George didn’t believe him.

“We’ve no intention of killing them,” Stephen intervened. “But they can’t stay here. You saw how emaciated they looked, and the one with the injured leg needs treatment if it’s going to survive.”

“And it’s my job to make sure that none of you are injured in the process,” Ryan said.

“He’s right, Ju,” Dick said, to Ryan’s surprise. “Captain Ryan and Dr Hart clearly have more experience of this sort of thing than we do.”

“What sort of thing?” George demanded. “Ju, Dick, what’s going on? Stop being so bloody cryptic.”

A slow smile spread across Dick’s face. “We’re about to have some fun, George, that’s what’s going on. We haven’t had an adventure for a while, have we? Well, it looks like one has just landed right in our laps. Now all we need to do is convince Captain Ryan that we’re not quite the helpless bystanders that he’s used to dealing with.” The smile quirked into a knowing grin. “Or should I say Ryan, Captain, 25010643.”

The use of his name, rank and number opened the floodgates of memory in Ryan’s mind and in that instant he knew exactly from where he recognised Dick’s voice. The man currently staring at him with a very amused look on his face had been one of the interrogators on the SERE course that Ryan had undertaken as part of the selection process for UK Special Forces. Survive. Evade. Resist. Extract. The core elements of a four week course that had seen Ryan becoming even more intimately acquainted with the most desolate and miserable stretches of the Brecon Beacons. Dick had played a part in the Tactical Questioning stage of the course, providing a deceptively sympathetic respite from three days and nights of relentless questioning.

The identity of the interrogators was not usually disclosed and Ryan had never had cause to meet any of the men again until now.

“I believe you have the advantage, sir,” Ryan said. He’d added the ‘sir’ as a matter of politeness only as a number of the trainers on the SERE courses were often senior NCOs and below his rank.

“Kirrin. Major, retired. 24695373.” He held out his hand to Ryan. “You were an obstinate bugger, Ryan.”

Ryan shook his hand. “Thanks. You came closer to cracking me than anyone.”

The memory of the sudden feeling of relief he’d experienced all those years ago when a friendly voice had announced that the exercise was over and that Ryan had passed the test was so vivid that it could have been yesterday. Ryan had been cold, hungry and very, very exhausted. The relief that the interrogation was over had come very close to overwhelming rational thought, but then he’d remembered that at the beginning of the exercise, four long weeks ago, he’d been given a code word that would be used to signal the end of the tests, and the man who had congratulated him so warmly hadn’t used that word.

“Everyone else in your group fell for that one.”

Ryan wasn’t surprised. When he’d steadfastly refused to rise to the bait, Kirrin had used a variant of the code word. Close enough that his exhausted brain had longed to give in and simply trust that he hadn’t misheard. It had only been a missing s, after all. But Ryan had stuck to his guns.

Much as he had been doing for the last few minutes. But even he had to admit that keeping secrets when faced with someone who was almost certainly highly placed in one or other of the security services and his brother, a man who had been something of a legend in the Regiment in Ryan’s early days in Hereford, seemed somewhat pointless.

Both men could undoubtedly look after themselves, and George, he of the combative glint in his eyes, no doubt came into the same category. So that just left Anne to worry about.

“Anne’s pretty tough for a girl,” Dick said, as though he’d read Ryan’s thoughts.

Anne punched him on the arm but didn’t seem annoyed.

“She once went hand over hand down the rope in the well,” Dick added. “And George is as good as a boy any day.”

The thump he got from George was considerably harder.

As Dick’s words sunk in, Ryan looked at George with fresh eyes, noticing for the first time the slight swell that the baggy khaki shirt didn’t quite hide. Yes, there were definitely breasts under that shirt. The annoyance on George’s face was tempered by pleasure at the fact that both Ryan and Stephen had obviously been wholly convinced that she was a man.

“So since we’re stuck here until the tide turns, we may as well take a look at what your latest rip in time has disgorged.” Julian’s serious expression had been replaced by one of almost boyish enthusiasm.

George and Anne looked at him with an astonished expression. It was clear that whatever they had been expecting, it hadn’t been anything like that. Dick Kirrin, on the other hand, didn’t look in the slightest bit surprised.

Ryan looked at Stephen and shrugged. They were just going to have to go with the flow on this occasion. The Kirrin brothers clearly knew about the anomaly project and provided Ryan didn’t give away any secrets, his conscience would be clear and it would be up to Lester to ensure that neither George nor Anne talked out of turn.

Stephen caught Ryan’s eyes and said quietly, “Those creatures have been here for a while by the look of them, maybe even a month or more. Why wasn’t this picked up?”

Ryan shrugged. There were any number of reasons, ranging from a fault with Connor’s ADD to non-existent mobile phone network and patchy satellite coverage. The animals had had time to dig a burrow under the rock outcrop and were clearly managing to obtain enough food and water to remain alive, but not enough to prosper. He didn’t think it would be difficult to trap them once they got the appropriate back-up over from the ARC. The lure of food and a large net would be enough. But he couldn’t discount the prospect of an adult having come through the anomaly that had brought the youngsters here as well. He certainly didn’t fancy their chances against one of them unarmed.

As George demanded an explanation from her cousin, Ryan turned the nature of the problem over in his mind. They had hungry animals on their hands. The creature might be no bigger than Timmy, but he wouldn’t want to come up against even a friendly creature like the large mongrel if he hadn’t eaten properly in weeks, maybe even months.

“How much spare food have we got?” he asked.

“There’s a couple of packs of bacon and a tin of ham back at our camp,” Stephen said. “And the ginger cake.”

“They’re not bloody well having that!” Ryan might have been an animal lover – or at least he was when they weren’t trying to rip his throat out – but he wasn’t that altruistic.

“I think we can do better than that,” Anne said with a smile. “I can’t see my dear family being willing to sacrifice ginger cake, either, and one tin of ham isn’t going to go very far between three hungry animals. Tim has one to himself for tea. I think it’s time we made a trip down to the dungeons.”

Ryan stared at her in amazement. His day had just got that little bit stranger.


	6. Chapter 6

“This castle has dungeons?” Ryan was incredulous. “I thought it was just some rich idiot’s folly, not a real castle.”

“He was a rich idiot who liked dungeons,” Dick supplied. “I’ve never wanted to enquire too closely into Lord Trelawney’s idea of a good time.”

“Dick! We’ve got a problem!” Julian’s voice came from inside the main part of the ruin, where the roof timbers and those supporting what had been the first floor were now long gone, victims of the elements that had battered them for over 100 years.

Ryan followed Dick as he ran over to where his brother was standing under a stone archway pointing to a large pile of rubble.

“Don’t tell me, the entrance to the dungeon is under that lot,” Ryan hazarded.

“Got it in one,” Dick said as he stared at the mess of stone and wood. “Don’t worry, we won’t have to give up the ginger cake. There’s another way in, but for that we need to get down to the cove where we left the boats.”

To Dick’s obvious surprise, George shook her head. “It’s a no go from that direction as well. That big storm in February shifted some rocks on the beach and the entrance to the tunnel is blocked.”

“So there’s no way of getting at your emergency supplies of food?” Ryan demanded. He hadn’t been surprised to discover that the Kirrins kept stockpiles of tinned food on the island, it was just the location of the food that had seemed a little unusual.

Dick eyed Ryan’s lover in an appraising manner. “There’s one way that might work. It depends how good Stephen is with tight squeezes, really.” He gestured over to the well and started walking across the courtyard. He leaned over the lintel and pointed into the darkness. “You can’t see it from here, but there’s a small door in the stone lining that leads into one of the underground rooms. It was easy enough to get through when we were kids, but there’s no way any of us would manage it now.”

“You think Stephen would get through?” Ryan wasn’t enamoured of the idea, but they could really do with the food. The animals would be a good deal more tractable with full bellies and hopefully that would be enough to prevent them coming in search of any other source of food, namely themselves.

“He might be skinny enough,” Dick said. He reached out for the thick rope that dangled down the well-shaft and grabbed it then looked at Stephen. “You’ll need to climb down this, swing your feet over to the door and then try to wriggle through. Just make sure you drag the rope after you so you can come out head first, holding the rope on your way out.” He turned to his brother and added, “Ju, haul the bucket up, we need to get this rope properly tied off.”

In response to Ryan’s concerned look, Stephen simply reached over and gave Ryan’s hand a quick squeeze. “If I don’t think I can get through, I’ll come straight back up.”

The prospect of climbing down a rope and trying to wriggle through a tight hole might have appealed to Lyle, but it sure as hell didn’t appeal to Ryan. He could feel the clog-dancing butterflies forming up in his stomach as Stephen zipped a Maglite handed to him by George into a pocket as the chances of losing a head-torch down the well were too high for using one of them to be a feasible option. The elastic head straps wouldn’t be enough to keep the light in place if he ended up doing any impromptu gymnastics on the rope. He stripped off his thick shirt, leaving just a thin black teeshirt, making sure he’d taken everything else out of his pockets and handed them to Ryan.

“The rope is secured now,” Julian announced.

After another light touch of his hand against Ryan’s, Stephen sat on the edge of the well, took firm hold of the rope and then swung out, wrapping his feet around the rope. He then proceeded to lower himself down, the muscles in his arms cording visibly with the effort. Ryan’s stomach muscles were clenched with tension. This was starting to descend into the sort of mad caper usually thought up by the unholy trinity of Lyle, Blade and Finn, and Ryan didn’t like it one little bit.

“I’m level with the door!” Stephen called up to them. “It’s closed. Is there a lock on it?”

“No!” George called down to him. “That rusted away years ago. You should be able to kick the door open!”

With the rope firmly wrapped around his forearms, Stephen swung his legs up and to one side and Ryan heard a dull thud as the soles of Stephen’s trainers connected with wood. The words, “Got you, you bastard,” drifted up to Ryan. It sounded like Stephen had achieved his first objective.

Julian was pointing the beam of a torch down the well, so Ryan could watch as Stephen did his best to wriggle into the small hole in the side of the well shaft. It was clear from the litany of quiet curses that Stephen wasn’t finding the task an easy one. Eventually, he managed to push himself back out of the hole so that he could wrap the rope around his legs again.

“No fucking chance,” he ground out through gritted teeth as he hauled himself painfully back up the rope.

Stephen was trembling from the effort as Ryan and Dick dragged him over the top of the well shaft.

“Too tight on my hips,” he panted.

“We’ll just have to think of something else,” Dick said. “Nice try, though.”

To Ryan’s surprise, Anne Kirrin stepped up to the well and reached out for the rope. She’d stripped off her sweater and was standing there in only a light cotton shirt and a pair of brushed denim trousers. She was slender and barely reached up to Stephen’s shoulder. She also had narrower hips.

“Anne, no bloody way!” Dick said, sounding every bit as stunned as Ryan felt.

“We need the food, Dick. Besides, it’s ages since I’ve had this sort of fun.”

“You’re a tax lawyer, for God’s sake, not bloody Bruce Willis!”

Anne patted her elder brother lightly on the arm. “Dick, darling, I probably go to the gym more frequently than you do. So be a good boy and shut the fuck up for once.”

Before either of her brothers could stop her, Anne sat on the lintel, wrapped the rope around her forearm and then swung out. Ryan watched as she swarmed down the rope looking like a cabin boy in an old pirate film, her short blonde hair gleaming in the light of Julian’s torch. She reached the hole, swung her feet over as Stephen had done and then slipped through the small doorway with no obvious effort, dragging the rope after her.

With a broad grin on her face, George declared, “Bloody hell, good old Anne! Do you remember when she chased those two thieves right off this island? And the day she chucked that bucked of water over Wilfrid!”

“We always said she was a tiger when she wanted to be.” Julian laughed. “Twenty-five years in a desk job hasn’t changed that.”

“I’ve heard her ordering her clients around,” Dick said. “She definitely hasn’t changed.”

Within a matter of minutes, one of the rucksacks had been attached to the rope and slid down to Anne. She quickly filled it with food and then ordered them to pull it up. Two more loads were hauled up after that, making Ryan wonder quite what sort of siege the Kirrins had been expecting to encounter. When it came to the return up the rope, she was as quick and competent as she had been on the descent and was soon standing in the courtyard, smoothing down her shirt, trying – and failing – to suppress a smile of satisfaction at the looks on their faces.

“Nice to know I’m still as good as a boy as well,” she commented.

“Do I get the impression your brothers were a pair of sexist pigs as kids?” Stephen said.

Anne rolled her eyes. “The phrase simply doesn’t even begin to cover it, but in fairness to them, we had very old fashioned parents. I think we’ve mostly taught them better manners now, haven’t we, George?”

George grinned at her cousin. “We certainly have. Come on, watching you making all that effort has made me positively ravenous. I think we ought to check that the ham and corned beef hasn’t gone off before we feed it to those poor creatures.”

Ryan hadn’t been in the army for the best part of twenty years without seeing the consumption of some very strange meals, but even he had to admit that slices of ham topped with cold baked beans and tinned fruit might well have been even stranger than some of Lyle’s culinary efforts.

“Brings back memories,” Dick said, happily wolfing down a large plateful of food and watching with amusement while Ryan and Stephen conservatively stuck to ham, corned beef and beans mopped up with large chunks of bread. “Someone pass the ginger beer.”

After a leisurely lunch, Anne spent some while opening several tins of meat and emptying the contents into a carrier bag. On Stephen’s advice, she didn’t go totally overboard, as if the animals hadn’t eaten properly for a while, too much rich food would simply come straight back up again if they were allowed to gorge themselves.

As they made their way back across the island, Ryan insisted on everyone equipping themselves with a hefty stick, just in case they ended up having to adopt a defensive strategy where the young bear-dogs were concerned.

“What are they called again?” George demanded, taking an experimental swing with her stick and neatly decapitating a large pink rhododendron flower.

“Amphicyon,” Stephen supplied. “They died out around 20 million years ago.”

“How did you end up with a job like yours?” she asked enviously.

Stephen shrugged. “I was in the right place at the right time, I guess.”

Ryan shared a smile with Stephen, pleased by the fact that Stephen had chosen to put it that way rather than describing it as the wrong place at the wrong time.

“I take it that’s how you two met?” Anne said. Her sharp blue eyes clearly missed very little.

“Yes,” Ryan said. “I’ve been seconded to the project since the beginning.” He glanced over at Dick. “How come you knew about it, sir? Has someone been talking out of turn?”

Dick shook his head. “Let’s just say that I still do quite a bit of consultancy work for the Directorate. I was one of the people who argued for Joel Stringer’s team being assigned to your project full time. Or at least as full time as we can afford at the moment,” he added.

“Thanks for that,” Ryan said. “Nice to know there’s someone else fighting our corner.”

Dick’s revelation at least went a long way to assuaging Ryan’s fears about security. He hadn’t been relishing explaining to Lester how their secrecy had come to be busted, but if Dick Kirrin did consultancy at that level, it put him a long way above Ryan’s pay grade. And the same was no doubt true of Julian. He wondered for a moment what these four had been like as kids. George had clearly been the tomboy of the group, with Anne as the more girly girl, if the jokes were to be believed. Julian would have been – and no doubt still was – the steady older brother, probably very conscious of his responsibilities, whereas Dick had almost certainly been the more carefree one of the boys. He rather suspected that there were several good stories to be told, if some of the remarks Wilf Layman had made about his own youth were anything to go by.

Stephen put a hand up to silence the conversation. “We’re getting close to the rock outcrop now,” he said quietly. “The wind has changed direction, so we can rely on watching them from the rocks.” He looked around at the trees. “We should be able to take cover here. The only problem is that we’re too far away to be able to throw the meat close enough to the hole to entice our friends out, so I’m going to have to get over there and hope they don’t find the smell too off-putting.”

“You had a shower before we left yesterday, Hart,” Ryan commented. “And you had a wash under that waterfall.”

Stephen rolled his eyes. “Don’t give up the day job, sweetie.”

“There’s another way,” George said. “Timmy can take the meat over there and leave it. And that way, if one of them appears while he’s doing it, he can just scarper back here.” In response to Stephen’s look of surprise, George declared hotly, “He’s the cleverest dog ever! If I tell him not to eat the meat, he won’t!”

“I swear my cousin reverts to the age of 12 at the drop of a hat,” Dick murmured. When Dick held his hands up in mock-defence, she glared at him. Dick only laughed, and clearly took his life in his hands by ruffling her already-tousled hair. “Relax, old thing. I’m not insulting Tim. All his predecessors have been clever, but Timmy the Fourth is exceptional, even by their standards. But you’re still as quick to fire up as ever.”

George’s eyes softened for a moment and she stroked her dog’s large head. “OK, Tim, you’re on your honour now.” She took one of the big chunks of corned beef out of the carrier bag, held it in front of Timmy’s nose and shook her head, saying the word ‘no’ to him three times. The dog sat at her feet, tail wagging. When she handed the meat to him, he simply held it in his mouth, without chewing. “Away!” she told him, pointing at the rocky outcrop.

Timmy the Fourth trotted obediently in the direction she had indicated. When he had almost reached the burrow that the three young bear-bogs had dug as a refuge, George gave two low, sharp whistles. Timmy promptly dropped the meat and returned to his mistress at a loping run. They repeated the action three more times, with the contents of two more tins of corned beef and a large tin of ham. He was rewarded for his efforts with a thick slice of corned beef, which he wolfed down in one bite.

Anne shook her head, an amused expression on her face. “None of the Timmys have ever taken their time over their food.”

“They take after their owner,” Dick muttered, earning him another of George’s punches.

“Stop squabbling and pass me a corned beef sandwich,” Julian said, settling himself down in the shade of a large oak tree. “We might be here quite some while and I’m hungry.”

Ryan’s eyes widened slightly. The man was as thin as a rake but managed to eat as much food as Kermit and Finn put together, which took some doing. No wonder they kept a mass of tins in an old dungeon. A rowing boat would no doubt sink under the weight of what this lot could put away for a weekend.

“Sandwich?” Anne said as she handed a packet around to everyone.

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Stephen, giving her a beaming smile.

Ryan accepted the packet Anne was holding out to him. “Thanks.”

There was certainly no danger of starving if you were out in the countryside with the Kirrin family. And there was a lot to be said for their constant refrain that food tasted nicer when eaten outdoors. Especially when washed down with a cold bottle of ginger beer.

Munching contentedly, Ryan settled down to wait for the young bear-dogs to rise to the bait.


	7. Chapter 7

A low growl from Timmy brought Ryan instantly out of a light sleep, doing the same for George, Dick and Stephen, while Julian and Anne slept on.

Dick met Ryan’s eyes and the older man gave a shamefaced grin. “Falling asleep on stag. I’ve busted guys for that.”

“So have I,” Ryan admitted. You’d fail the course at Sandhurst for sleeping on sentry duty. It was a good job they had their own hairy early warning system.

Once he’d alerted them to movement outside the burrow, Timmy fell silent again at a low word from his owner.

A long, dog-like snout sniffed curiously at the air. No doubt the animal was picking up something unusual in the vicinity, but the animals were young and had no prior knowledge of human beings, so had not yet learned any fear response. The animal came out of the burrow slowly, alert for any danger. The twitching muzzle was lowered to one of the chunks of corned beef. A cautious bite followed and in a few moments, the animal had wolfed the meat down, making happy yips that soon alerted the other two. The creatures fell on the other lumps of meat and had soon devoured the lot. Watching the animals competing good-naturedly for the large piece of ham, which ended up being pulled into more or less even chunks brought a smile to Ryan’s face. They looked like nothing more than overgrown puppies. It was hard to believe that they would grow into something as large and formidable as the animals that had so relentlessly pursued him and Blade through a pine forest in Wales.

Once they had eaten all the meat, the amphicyons lolled around in the warm sun, stretching comfortably. After a while, two of them engaged in an energetic play fight, watched by the smaller and thinner of the three. Ryan had noted how the animal’s injured leg clearly pained it. Its attempts to walk on three paws were made awkward by the way the broken leg dragged on the ground, the bones probably half set at a bad angle.

“That’s going to need amputating,” Stephen said quietly.

George shot him a hard look, clearly still thinking that there was a good chance that the animals would simply be killed.

“You can trust us,” Ryan said. “I’m under orders only to use lethal force as a very last resort.”

Dick Kirrin raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“You haven’t met Professor Nick Cutter,” Ryan said. “When he’s roused he’s got a voice on him that Sergeant MacRae would have been proud of.” His old RSM at Sandhurst had been one of the scariest fuckers Ryan had ever met.

Dick laughed. “Can he drink as much Scotch as well?”

“He certainly bloody can.” Ryan had gone head to head with Cutter once over a bottle of whisky – or several – and the hangover had lasted two days. It wasn’t an experience he was keen to repeat.

“They’re off down to the stream for a drink,” George said, as the three creatures suddenly stopped playing and ambled away along a rough path that led down to the shore.

“Well, we’ve established that they like the food,” Stephen said. “As soon as we can get some back up here from the mainland, it’s not going to be too hard to net them and tranq them. We can rig a net up somehow from the rocks; it won’t be too much of a problem. I don’t see that we need to worry too much about them doing a disappearing act. That burrow hasn’t been dug recently, so they’re obviously established here. I suggest we leave them some more meat for when they come back.”

They left the contents of three more corned beef cans outside the burrow and made their way back to the courtyard. As they walked, Stephen had been casting around in the woods like a dog on a scent and, to Ryan’s relief, appeared confident that nothing larger than the three youngsters had come through the anomaly, so they could reasonably sleep easy in their tents later that night. The amphicyons had full bellies for once and no need to go hunting.

As soon as they reached the ruined castle, Julian promptly declared that the sun was over the yardarm somewhere in the world and produced several cans of beer from a cool bag. Ryan wondered what strange concoction was likely to be offered up for the evening meal, and he hoped it didn’t involve any more tins of fruit mixed with baked beans. That had been bad enough to watch, and he certainly had no intention of eating anything along those lines. To his relief, Anne produced several large packs of sausages and proceeded to expertly fry them over a small camping stove.

Bread rolls were produced to go with them, while onions stewed in a pan on a second stove. As far as Ryan could tell, all the onions had been pre-sliced and bagged up, so this was clearly a well-established ritual. For every sausage he ate, another one found its way to Timmy, even though the dog had already wolfed down a large heap of biscuits.

The ginger cake they’d brought up from their camp was divided into seven equal parts and washed down with nightcaps of gin and ginger beer. The conversation had flowed easily throughout the meal and Ryan had learned that Julian worked at Thames House, the headquarters of the Security Service. MI5, to the tabloids. No surprises there, then. Dick’s activities seem to consist of providing an advisory service to anyone rich enough to pick up the no doubt expensive tab. Anne probably earned more than the pair of them put together, which was hard to reconcile with the cheerful way she dished up some of the strangest meals Ryan had ever seen eaten, and there were times when George seemed the most normal of the bunch. From some of the remarks she’d made, Ryan had gathered that she lived in Poole, with her partner – in both senses of the word – a riding school teacher called Ruth, who was running the weekend activities in George’s absence.

At Dick’s suggestion, Ryan and Stephen had brought their tent into the courtyard for the night. The dent it would put in their love lives was probably minor set against the possibility, however slight, of a run in with the young amphicyons while they slept. Ryan saw no point in taking unnecessary risks. George was no doubt right in her claim that if anything more threatening than a squirrel came into the courtyard then Timmy the Fourth would act as a very effective early warning system. The dog might have a lop-sided grin and distinctly asymmetrical ears, but he was intelligent and loyal, and that was enough for Ryan.

* * * * *

Ryan unzipped the tent and slipped out, leaving Stephen still sleeping. He wasn’t particularly surprised to see Dick Kirrin perched on top of one of the stone lions in the entrance to the courtyard, Timmy sitting next to the lion, looking like a smaller and scruffier cousin of the stone king of the jungle.

It was 6.15am.

“Pulled an all-nighter, sir? I would have been happy to take my turn.”

“I always liked night watches.” Dick reached down and ruffled Timmy’s ears. “Besides, he likes the company. Dunno how George manages it. Every one is damn nearly the spitting image of the last. Almost makes me believe in reincarnation.”

Ryan stared at the big dog who grinned up at him, brown eyes almost laughing. “Not much stranger than dealing with dinosaurs on a daily basis.”

“I suppose not.” Dick sighed. “I just wish the bloody bean-counters would authorise more back-up for you. Can’t run a bloody operation like yours on a shoestring, and there’s no point in giving you a bloody great big building and then whining about staffing costs.”

“I thought the funds they’d got their hands on from Mason’s accounts were going to help.” The billionaire entrepreneur who had died on the wrong side of an anomaly on one of his own two million pound a person hunting trips had effectively bequeathed them a private zoo and a seemingly ever-open gateway to a positive spaghetti junction of anomalies as well as a potentially bottomless bank account.

“They will, eventually, but the Ministry of Justice has been whinging about ‘proper channels’ and there’s the usual turf war going on behind the scenes. But if you’re lucky, you’ll get that helicopter Lester wants before Christmas, but just remember to look surprised when he announces it. It turns out Mason had a private chopper as well as a private jet. Kept ‘em both at Gatwick. The heli pad at the Hall was a bit of a giveaway.”

That would make a hell of a difference when they had to get somewhere in a hurry. “Thanks for fighting our corner.”

Dick laughed. “Thank James Lester. He’s been the one doing the most of the fighting. The man has the morals of a syphilitic stoat and the balls of a wolverine when it comes to a scrap.”

Ryan grinned. The major clearly knew Lester.

The early morning sun was spreading bands of warm apricot across a gunmetal grey sky, holding the promise of another day like the one they’d just enjoyed.

“What’s the view like from the tower?”

“Pretty spectacular on a day like this.” Dick jerked his head in the direction of the doorway that led to a stone staircase. “Want to take a look? I imagine Timmy will be happy to hold the fort.”

The spiral staircase was crumbling in places but still serviceable. It opened out onto the top of the battlemented tower, giving an excellent view over the ever-whispering trees. The top of the grey crag that he’d climbed the previous day with Stephen and George was visible. He wondered how much difference the food they’d left had made to the young bear-dogs. He’d be surprised if the younger one could ever be reintroduced to its natural habitat given the damage its leg had sustained, but that would be a decision for Abby to take. It would be his job to make sure that the animals were rounded up with no danger to any members of the capture team.

The emerging sunlight was sparkling on the crag, dancing on the rock like white fire… No, it bloody well wasn’t…

Ryan pulled out the compass he carried with him at all times as a matter of habit now.

The needle swung lazily to and fro.


	8. Chapter 8

With Timmy pacing at their side, Ryan and the others moved rapidly along the forest tracks. As soon as they reached the break in the trees where they’d had lunch and watched the young amphicyons, they could see the open anomaly hanging in the air part of the way up the crag, looking like it was partially embedded in the grey rock.

The crag itself sloped backwards and was by no means a sheer slope, but any creature coming through would be caught unawares by the sudden drop. It was the sort of thing the soldiers and scientists of the anomaly project had learned to be wary of. No one wanted to find themselves stepping out into open air, or plunging into water or any number of hazards that could – and frequently did – exist on the other side of an anomaly.

“What are the chances of it going to the same time period these chaps came from?” Dick demanded.

“Good,” Stephen said. “The broken leg is a clue to the fact that it’s opened in the same place. An awkward fall down that cliff would easily account for it. So all we need to do is find a way of enticing them back up the cliff and we stand a reasonable chance of getting them back home.”

Ryan looked at his watch. “The tide will have turned by now. We could send someone back to the mainland to call the ARC.”

“It’ll take two to three hours to get a team on site. By then we could have lost the anomaly. We need to try something ourselves.”

“Hart, you have got to be kidding. They might be juveniles, but they’ve still got jaws like a bloody crocodile and an attitude to match. There is no way we can just pick ’em up and chuck them back through the anomaly. We’ve got no nets.” The look of determination on Stephen’s face was giving Ryan a very distinct sinking feeling and he knew his words weren’t having much effect.

“We’ve got tents. If we could lure them inside a tent, close it behind them and haul them up the cliff…”

Ryan resisted the temptation to groan. Stephen’s plans often had a MacGyver flavour to them, and this was no exception. No matter how tough the tents were, his money would be on the amphicyons chewing their way out in no time at all.

Anne lifted up the bag of food she’d brought with her. How about trying to lay a trail up the crag? We could drop food down from the top onto the ledges.”

That sounded more reasonable, although it wouldn’t answer the problem of the injured one, but they could cross that bridge when they got to it.

“If that doesn’t work, we can then try the tents,” Julian said, with an air of authority that clearly came from always having been the eldest in his family, and probably also from several decades of ordering around minions in the Security Service. Ryan had always had a natural distrust of spooks. He’d dealt with enough clandestine ops in his time to know that lying went with the territory but it wasn’t something he enjoyed. But on this occasion, he appreciated the man’s back-up.

Julian caught the look on Ryan’s face and gave a slight smile. “Sorry, Captain. I guess this one is your call.”

Ryan shrugged. “Let’s see what we can do to get some food up there.”

As he spoke, the first of the amphicyons poked its head out of the undergrowth and cautiously sniffed the air. It hadn’t yet learned to associate the smell of human beings with a sense of threat, and if they were lucky, provided their plans came to fruition, they then would be umpteen million years away from any homo sapiens sapiens.

“Stephen and I can work our way around to the side and up the crag,” George declared. She’d been bonding with Stephen the previous night over a shared love of outdoor pursuits, climbing in particular, and Ryan knew that the grey rock would present no difficulty to either of them.

The amphicyon made its way across the clearing to the burrow and then stretched out in the warmth of the sun. The other two followed, the smaller, injured creature bringing up the rear. Its dark coat was dull, and its ribs stood out even more starkly than those of its litter-mates.

Stephen divided up the rucksack full of food, handing a plastic bag containing some corned beef and ham to Anne in case they needed to distract the creatures from there. Ryan watched as they worked themselves around to the rock outcrop, skirting the edge of the trees and doing their bet to remain upwind of the animals. The crag itself presented no particular challenges and both Stephen and George moved easily and competently up the rock face. The amphicyons had stopped playing and were now watching the upwards progress of the strange creatures.

The anomaly burned brightly in the midst of the rocks, as beautiful and as potentially deadly as ever. From the top of the crag, Stephen and George would be able to drop food down to the animals and also engineer its placement on the various ledges leading up to the gateway in time.

The trees continued to whisper around them, an ever-present noise that Ryan had almost ceased to register but a moment later, the sound was overlain with a bellowing roar that made him reach instinctively for a non-existent pistol. Anne stifled a scream and Dick had to lay a restraining hand on Timmy’s neck as the big dog’s hackles rose.

A massively-jawed head had thrust its way through the anomaly. Ryan recognised the creature instantly. Heavy shoulders followed and the fully grown amphicyon made its way sure-footedly down the crag, huge paws splayed out and claws scratching the rock.

Ryan looked desperately around for a weapon – any weapon. A fallen branch was as good as it got. Dick and Julian did the same, both men instinctively putting themselves between the bear-dog and their sister. It was too much to hope for that the creature would roar a few times and then sod off…

The bear-dog landed on the ground, its paws leaving deep prints into the soft earth thrown up from the burrow. It took no notice at all of the juveniles and started to pace towards the group by the trees.

“Stand your ground!” Ryan ordered. “We’ve no chance of out-running it. Anne, get into a tree if you can.”

“Oi, you!” A rock bounced onto the ground near the bear-dog, attracting its attention for a moment.

George drew her arm back for another throw, this time lobbing the contents of a tin of ham in the direction of the creature. It paused to sniff at the meat for the barest of seconds then wolfed down the food. Corned beef followed. She had gained the attention of the young ones now as well, but the big bugger wasn’t quite so easily entertained. From the sleek look of its dark brown fur, food was plentiful on the other side of the anomaly.

The amphicyon started prowling forwards, head swaying slowly from side to side in a movement that Ryan was all too familiar from his previous encounter with the creatures.

At his side, Timmy was growling low in his throat. Dick was doing his best to restrain the dog, but Timmy suddenly twisted away, leaving Dick holding nothing but his collar. The dog leaped forward, hackles up, barking loudly.

“Timmy!” George’s voice held a note of pure fear as she watched her beloved dog running directly at the amphicyon. The bear-dog was ten times Timmy’s bulk with crushing jaws and sharp claws, but to Ryan’s amazement, it deployed neither. It held its ground, but appeared more puzzled than anything.

Timmy launched himself at the bigger animal, letting out a volley of deep barks. The amphicyon took a step backwards, growling ominously. Timmy pressed home his advantage and the amphicyon backed up by another step. From its reaction, Ryan got the impression that the creature wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of quite such spirited resistance. From the top of the crag, a rock came hurtling down, thrown with the full force of Stephen’s arm. It struck the bear-dog on the rump hard enough to make it howl in irritation, turning to look over its shoulder. A second rock, this time thrown by George, struck it on the snout. The howl turned to a yelp.

Timmy heard the yelp and immediately went on the attack.

“This could spectacularly backfire,” Ryan muttered. “But it’s probably our best chance…”

Putting on his best parade ground voice, Ryan swung the tree branch like a club and charged at the animal, yelling as loudly as he could. After only the barest hesitation, Dick and Julian followed suit. The resemblance to the charge of the Light Brigade was foremost in Ryan’s mind as he closed the ground to the beleaguered amphicyon.

Under the onslaught of Timmy darting forward still barking loudly and fiercely, and the combined yells from three human throats, the amphicyon turned around and lumbered back to the rocks of the crag and started to climb. Once there, Ryan fervently hoped that the pull the anomaly seemed to exert over animals and humans alike would do its work and a moment later his hopes came to fruition as the adult animal made its way back into its own time, followed by the two healthy juveniles.

Timmy the Fourth stood in the middle of the clearing barking in triumph.

Ryan felt relief wash through him like a warm wave. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t think that was going to work…”

“So why did you charge at the bloody thing yelling like a madman and waving nothing more than a big stick?” Dick asked, amusement in his voice.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Ryan admitted.

Dick muttered something under his breath about the younger generation being batshit insane and clapped Ryan on the shoulder, grinning widely.

“It’s fading!” the yell came from Stephen on top of the crag.

He tried dropping some corned beef down onto the rocks above the third young bear-dog, but even the lure of more meat couldn’t overcome the creature’s injury. With a pained yelp, the animal attempted to scramble after its kin, but hopping up a slope proved too much and after a metre or so, it fell back and rolled on the ground with a mewling cry.

“Poor thing! Julian, Dick, is there nothing we can do to help it?” Anne entreated.

The anomaly flickered once then winked out of existence, leaving the injured amphicyon stranded for a second time.

“It wouldn’t stand much chance back in its own time,” Ryan said, offering what consolation he could. “Not with a leg like that. It wouldn’t be able to compete for food and the chances are it would die an unpleasant, lingering death.”

In an attempt to distract the injured creature, Stephen dropped more food down to the animal, drawing its attention away from the crag once it was clear that there was now nothing to be gained from trying to get it to climb up.

Once down from the crag, George flung her arms around Timmy and buried her face in the thick hair of the dog’s neck. With the immediate danger now passed, everyone crowded around Timmy, praising the big dog and patting his wiry coat. Timmy accepted all the praise with his usual lopsided grin, pink tongue lolling out between white teeth that only a few minutes previously had been bared in attack against a creature immensely bigger than himself. Timmy the Fourth was clearly a dog capable of punching well above his own weight.

George gave the dog a last hug and then presented him with a chunk of corned beef, which was promptly wolfed down while Timmy wagged his tail in appreciation of all the attention he was getting.

“Well done, Timmy!” George congratulated him. “I always said he was the best dog in the whole world and it’s true!”

“She says that about all of them,” Dick said in a quiet aside to Ryan. “But then she’s usually not wrong either.”

“So who’s going to row back to the mainland and let Lester know we’ve just gained another addition to the menagerie?” Stephen asked.

“Not me,” Ryan said quickly. “This is a science matter, not a military one.”

“I’m happy to talk to James,” said Julian with a smile. “He and I haven’t spoken since he snatched that particularly nice office from under my nose. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear from me.”

Ryan wasn’t sure about any such thing so he was happy to concur in Stephen’s suggestion that he should accompany Julian, just to make sure that Lester’s blood pressure wasn’t irreparably damaged.

As they walked through the woods to the sheltered cove where they’d left the boats, leaving the injured amphicyon to enjoy yet more corned beef, Ryan looped his arm around Stephen’s waist and pulled him close for a snatched kiss.

“Not quite the sort of weekend we had in mind,” he murmured. “Sorry about that.”

Stephen grinned, his vivid blue eyes the colour of the calm sea in the bay, “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, sweetie. I’ve been shagged senseless, eaten far too much, drunk ginger beer until it’s coming out of my ears and had a pretty impressive jolt of adrenaline from a very overgrown hearthrug. Seems like a pretty good weekend to me.”

* * * * *

“Just watch,” said Abby quietly. “He’ll be out in a moment.”

The sleek, well-fed animal that made its way out into the exercise area was a far cry from the skinny creature with the badly-broken leg that Ryan had last seen just under three weeks ago. As he’d anticipated, it had been necessary for Abby and their resident vet, Frankie Hughes, to amputate the broken leg just above the middle joint. Infection had already set in and it was touch and go for two days whether the creature would survive, but once it turned the corner, recovery was rapid.

Ryan and Stephen watched as Boo Boo made his way out into the enclosure, hopping along almost as rapidly on three legs as he had done on two. Abby and Frankie had been responsible for his naming.

“Will he ever be able to return to his own time?” Stephen held up his camera and started taking some snapshots.

Abby shook her head. “He’d be at too much of a disadvantage.” She stared around at the rolling grassland and enormous outdoor runs that made up the private zoo housed within the grounds of Farnley Hall. “We’re so lucky to have this place. We can look after him here and give him the freedom he needs.”

“And Cutter can write more papers that Lester won’t let him publish.”

As far as Ryan was concerned, by observing the animals in the zoo they might be able to learn something from their behaviour that could be used to save lives. As a justification for housing the animals stranded out of time, so far it seemed to be working, and he was glad of that.

They’d promised George Kirrin that no harm would come to the young animal and despite the secrecy surrounding the project her cousins were in a position to find out the truth.

Ryan had no desire to make four new enemies so he was relieved everything had worked out well for the newly-named Boo Boo. He then mentally amended that to five. Timmy the Fourth was as much of a force to be reckoned with as his human friends, as the fully-grown amphicyon had discovered.

As they watched Boo Boo playing in his enclosure, Stephen pulled a couple of bottles of ginger beer out of his pocket and flipped the tops off.

In return, Ryan handed him a bar of chocolate.

Abby rolled her eyes when the pair of them chorused, “I always think food tastes so much nicer when it’s eaten outdoors!”


End file.
